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Zoo’s elephants: Could another retirement option be Florida?

National Elephant Center near Orlando should take Toronto’s remaining three, not California’s PAWS, say some advocates.

Toka is one of three remaining elephants whose future in retirement has been the subject of heated controversy at city hall and the Toronto Zoo.
r Saturday by (Steve Russell / Toronto Star) | Order this photo

By Donovan VincentStaff Reporter

Fri., June 22, 2012

Officially the option is off the table, but proponents of the National Elephant Centre in Florida believe the Toronto Zoo’s trio of aging pachyderms would be better off going there than the California sanctuary they’re bound for.

The centre (called TNEC for short) is being built in an orange grove southeast of Orlando. Phase one of the estimated $12.5 million centre is slated to be completed at the end of this year, about 12 of the planned 91 hectares.

The centre hopes to accommodate 30 to 40 elephants once it’s built out in the coming years, though it will only house about seven or eight in its first year.

The non-profit won’t operate like a zoo, because it won’t always be open to the public, and when it is, customers will have to make reservations to get in.

Nor will it be a sanctuary like the PAWS facility, at more than 930 hectares, or one in Tennessee, because elephant breeding will take place.

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TNEC is billing itself as a centre for “conservation and management.’’

The decision to send Toronto’s elephants to PAWS has resulted in a drawn-out dispute over whether that was the right choice. Things have become so heated that former game show host Bob Barker recently insisted on an “ironclad guarantee” that his promised gift of $880,000 would be used to pay for a flight for the elephants to California.

It’s not on the radar now, but some zoo staff at several levels, along with an active group of citizens, are holding on to the hope — albeit remote — that TNEC will be where Toronto’s elephants end up.

When Toronto City Council stepped in late last year and voted to transfer the zoo’s three remaining elephants to PAWS (when, after five months of searching, the zoo failed to secure a host after deciding to phase out the exhibit), senior zoo staff revealed they were in “preliminary discussions’’ with TNEC.

But TNEC hadn’t even put a shovel in the ground at that point, so it wasn’t considered a viable option for our beasts.

In the meantime, Zoocheck Canada, the animal rights group assisting PAWS in the transfer process, said this week the new deadline for flying the elephants to California is early August. Top Toronto Zoo officials aren’t committing to that date, however, as the zoo continues its controversy-laden due-diligence review of the sanctuary.

Despite city council’s direction to ship the three aging female African elephants Toka, Iringa and Thika to PAWS, opponents point to reports of tuberculosis among some of the sanctuary’s pachyderms.

“It would be unethical to send elephants to a place that has TB,’’ says one expert source who has knowledge of the situation at PAWS.

Over the past week the Star carried stories about three “positive’’ cases of TB among elephants at PAWS within the last year and a half. Two are deceased — PAWS says they died of arthritis — and one has been in quarantine for more than three years.

But supporters of the sanctuary, such as Toronto councillors Michelle Berardinetti and Glenn De Baeremaeker, say they’re confident the facility, near San Andreas, Calif., has strict quarantine protocols in place that will keep Toronto’s trio safe from TB exposure.

De Baeremaeker adds there’s been far too much “fear-mongering’’ surrounding the TB issue at PAWS.

PAWS remains the destination for our elephants, Joe Torzsok, chair of the zoo’s board of directors, said this week.

“Council has given the zoo a clear direction where to send the city’s elephants — and that is PAWS. That is the direction the zoo is operating under,’’ he says.

A U.S. import permit has been obtained to ship the animals south.

Feelings run deep for and against the PAWS facility, where eight elephants currently live.

Opposition stems from the fact that the people in charge there are against the notion of capturing animals in the wild and breeding them in captivity, as zoos do.

Critics are also very uncomfortable with the strong ties PAWS has to the animal rights movement.

But supporters consider it a top-notch facility featuring elements such as a heated barn and Jacuzzi for the elephants.

On the other hand, phase one planning for TNEC calls for four interconnected pastures, each including ponds, mud wallows, dust bathing areas and other amenities. TNEC is receiving funding from 73 zoos as well as private donors, and the centre plans to seek accreditation from the American Association of Zoos and Aquariums, or AZA.

(The Toronto Zoo was an AZA member until recently, when the association revoked its accreditation over the city council decision to ship the elephants to non-AZA-certified PAWS. Toronto hopes to get its accreditation back next year.)

Noting the world elephant population is dropping drastically, Rick Barongi, chair of TNEC, says his centre will play a key role in breeding them.

Asian elephants are critically endangered, with only about 25,000 to 35,000 left in the wild, while African elephants, in the last 25 years, have dropped from an estimated 1.5 million to less than a half million.

Poaching and the ivory trade, habitat loss and disease are ravaging their populations.

The wild “isn’t safe’’ anymore for elephants, says Barongi, adding he finds that very depressing.

“We want to help elephants, and in the end do what’s best for (them) and (their) long-term future,” he says of his centre.

There are currently nearly 300 elephants in AZA-accredited facilities.

Barongi adds that bull hooks, instruments with sharp tips used to train and control elephants, will absolutely not be used at TNEC.

“Bull hooks are archaic,” says Barongi, who is also director at the Houston Zoo.

He says he’s well acquainted with the ongoing elephant controversy in Toronto and wishes to steer clear of it.

And he’s not about to disparage PAWS or those who run it, though he did say the zoo needs to get the best advice it can about the extent of TB at the sanctuary.

“PAWS is a good facility for certain elephants. I’ve known (PAWS co-founder) Pat Derby for some time. We may differ in some of our views, but I respect the lady. I won’t say we’re better this way or they’re better that way,’’ Barongi says.

TNEC officials say their centre will provide a necessity, as several North American zoos have phased out their elephant exhibits or are planning to, primarily — as was the case in Toronto — for financial reasons.

Those zoos need a place to send their creatures, says Barongi, adding TNEC will also accept elephants from circuses, private owners and situations where they are confiscated.

Most will be North American-born, though older ones will have originated from the wild.

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